Biggest game system let downs or pleasant surprises?

[evil_ash_xero]

The system that always comes to mind, is the N64. I was the biggest Nintendo fan, at the time, and I thought that the N64 was going to kill the PS and SS. One reason, is I hated the load times on the CD Roms.
Little did I know, that it would come at the expense of detail and sound. But the biggest problem, by far, was it's miniscule output of third party quality titles. This system was a bummer. Poster child for "Sam's let downs, in video gaming history". I got rid of this, but I still have two games for it.

Sega Dreamcast. Good system, but I doubt it would've survived PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox. It was just a little too old looking, in the graphics department. My problem with this system, is that it got killed off so soon, that it didn't even have a chance to get a decent library. Weird too, since it debuted so well. Even the Saturn has a nice import shmup library, despite being canned in the U.S., early on. I still own it, but I only have about 6 games for it.

Sega Saturn. Killed off too soon, but that wasn't the biggest problem. During this time, polygonal graphics were all the rage, and it had the weakest of all. That would have been OK, if it delivered with tons of awesome 2D games(which is was built for), but it didn't(unless you count the shmups and a few other titles). I still have 2 of these, and I will always have it hooked up, due to it's shmups. But it was definitely a letdown. And if you got it, when it first came out...oh man....those controllers sucked! And then, for a whole year or more...it had so few games coming out. It was like starvation. Very N64 style. And where was the 3D sonic? Where was the new Streets Of Rage? The Shinobi on it, looked like ass. I could go on, but i won't. Saturn and Dreamcast, NICHE personified.

As for surprises....360's Japanese and Shmup library is pretty surprising.

[BryanM]

Argh, I still feel burned by my N64. I blame Squaresoft and Enix. And Atlus. Them too.

The bulk of good games came out of Nintendo's pooper, which seems to be their home console strategy to this very day. Argh just some really terrible stuff, and some really ok stuff. And no jRpg stuff.

As hyped as I was for Ogre Battle 64, it was rather disappoint. Stop punishing me for slaughtering insects or using large units game designer dude. Bleh, I wish that one really was a straight up Jrpg; it really felt like it yearned to be one..

Also when I bought my evil ex a DS, I was surprised by its overall quality. I knew it was good, wouldn't have got it otherwise, but it is a good little workhorse of a platform pretty well supported if you like rpgs. Or lusted for a stripped down Ketsui that barely prepared you for the real thing..

What I don't understand is why Nintendo doesn't bother with tasking a team to create top tier RPGs for their home consoles. It makes no freaking sense. They've got Pokemons and occasionally Famiwars and Fire Emblem. They had the Mother series. In the time between Mother releases, they make 8 or 9 main-title Mario Bros games.

Developers can't support a box that doesn't support their games. Even 1 token really good rpg every year or two would draw more support for a demographic they've given up completely on.... though it seems like they've bought the Dragon Quest series so I'm probably ranting about something they already decided to do back when DQ9 was being developed..

[Sumez]

Considering everything the old Xbox was, combined with a game library that hardly included a single game worth playing, I hadn't expected anything from the 360.

I think the 360 is now my favorite console since the SNES, if only because of its games and Live.

[neorichieb1971]

I don't like any present day console for games. Especially AAA games. I'd rather sit down with PSN/Live titles.

I loved the N64/PS1 and SS era. Didn't care which one won or lost. Just loved them all. It was the era for me. Nothing else has come close since then.

DC for me is over rated. Controller was pants and Sony scared all the 3rd parties away from it. If you took Capcom out of it there would be nothing left. Had a great start though.. The momentum dropped like a brick after that.

I have a soft spot for the cube and PS2.

I think thats all I want to say on consoles.

[Skykid]

Sega Dreamcast. Good system, but I doubt it would've survived PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox. It was just a little too old looking, in the graphics department.

I thought the DC was graphically superior to the PS2 for the most part?

[louisg]

N64 for sure: I remember waiting for it, was impressed by Mario 64, and then.. almost nothing came out for it. That entire generation was screwed, but N64 caught it the worst. Add the really terrible performance problems of a typical N64 game to it, and it's kind of a disaster of a system. Fortunately, I didn't own one

GC: That brings me to the GC. Impeccably designed system, but Nintendo could never manage to win the image war. For performance vs. cost, I think this is probably the best system that generation. It just never had all that many great games.

DC: I probably have more hours on this than any other system I've owned. I disagree that it was maybe too old in the graphics department-- it was fairly close to PS2, at least for the first couple years of PS2 games and for later PS2 games which aren't top tier, and especially considering that it was two years earlier at almost half the cost it was pretty impressive at the time. (To address SkyKid above, it's kind of like PC Engine vs. Genesis--in some ways it was better, in some ways it was worse). But, it lost the hype war very badly and 3rd party support fell off. It could have survived as a Neo Geo-like system (with the appeal of nearly identical arcade hardware), but Sega pulled the plug too soon.

360: I agree this was a pleasant surprise. The original XBox screamed "PC in a box"-- everything from the architecture to the games' performance just seemed like it was designed by people who didn't know and didn't care what a console was. It even went and launched with some mediocre sequel to a Mac FPS game. Flash forward to the 360, and even though they break every other month, they've got a cool selection of games-- and it even has shooters!

Lynx: Why, Atari? You had amazing hardware; why couldn't you get any 3rd party devs besides freaking Telegames? This almost goes for the Jaguar too: For $250 in 1993, you think it would've had a chance considering it could do OK 3d so early. I guess people were just past Gouraud shading and raycast games by the time the PSX came out, and in 1993 folks were too busy with their SNES/Genesis anyway.

[CMoon]

Same thing as everyone else. We joke about consoles not having games, but damn, the N64 is the all-round champion of this status. I was disappointed by the GC as well, but it still had far more quality games than the N64.

I also concur with others that the DC and SS went too soon. The DC in particular was the last hold out of pure arcade action. I never play it anymore, but back in the day it was by far my favorite console.

[Casper<3]

Argh, I still feel burned by my N64. I blame Squaresoft

this

[Gus]

The correct answer is anything current gen outside of a J360.

Here on shmups forum I play video games, not shitty gamemovies.

[Sumez]

Same thing as everyone else. We joke about consoles not having games, but damn, the N64 is the all-round champion of this status. I was disappointed by the GC as well, but it still had far more quality games than the N64.

Well, at least out of the "mainstream consoles". It's obvious to anyone that the CD-i, Virtual Boy, anything Atari ever released, etc. had much worse lineups than the N64.
I think an important fact to consider about N64 is that out of the few good titles it has, there are some incredibly high quality products and true classics among them.
If the N64 could have had a decent video output and some better 3rd party support (again, Square!), it would have been an amazing platform. I still prefer N64's muddy composite video to PS1's hideous grainy 3D textures.


The Dreamcast is getting tons of love from game geeks and Sega lovers, and honestly it's game library wasn't much better than the N64 (it's obviously better, but not by much, and a lot of its games were ports)

Despite all this, the N64 was still a big disappointment to me, coming in the wake of the SNES.

[ncp]

What the shit are you people smoking? Nintendo 64 having no good games? Is this real life???????????????????????????

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

I was going to say something nice about the N64, but F-Zero X is the only game on there that really stands out to me as a timeless classic. (I consider it superior to GX, if that helps.)

[Elixir]

I remember getting an N64, I was never disappointed with the console and always enjoyed the games.

I have to vote for the DC.

It was early December of 1999.

I went to school that day. Uneventful day that I've forgotten the contents of. I took my money to school (dumb idea) and had my teacher safeguard it, because I knew I would be going directly to the store afterwards. I trusted my teacher, he had an accent that wasn't Samoan or Maori. I actually did this because I didn't want to "go home to get the money" and then have my mother try to ween her way out of going there.

The Dreamcast had been released in NZ, and local stores had kiosks playing Soul Calibur, House of the Dead 2 with light guns, and Sonic Adventure. The console retailed for $599.95 NZD. The games were $129.99 NZD each. I saved up $200 and had to hire purchase the rest, under my mother's name.

I bought the Dreamcast and 2 games, Soul Calibur and Sonic Adventure. No VMU because they weren't available here until 6 months later. By that time, Sega Ozisoft had already announced bankruptcy, and offered a refund if the console was returned to them directly. I took the opportunity to return the console, into a small warehouse in mid-south Auckland ...it was full of returned Dreamcasts in boxes.

There was no VMU on launch. All those characters unlocked in Soul Calibur on the kiosks.. were stored to foreign VMUs, unobtainable here, and the stores wouldn't sell the display units (obviously. I didn't ask). I remember buying Marvel vs. Capcom 1 from ebgames and that was about it. All the other games were too expensive, and I couldn't afford them. I do have fond memories of comparing "Sonic's speed to that of a Gran Turismo car" to the friends I had back then.

But yeah, the Dreamcast failed here before anywhere else. Sega Ozisoft's reasoning for offering a return was because they "couldn't provide the online modem capabilities seen in promotions", so they were probably offering this to avoid being sued for false advertising. The real case feels much deeper, the chances of them knowing the console was failing internationally might have been a factor too.

During 2000, I went back to playing stuff like Thrasher, Goldeneye, Gran Turismo 2, and Mario Kart 64. I guess, somewhere along the lines I realized that newer isn't always better.

[evil_ash_xero]

Sega Dreamcast. Good system, but I doubt it would've survived PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox. It was just a little too old looking, in the graphics department.

I thought the DC was graphically superior to the PS2 for the most part?

Really? Hmm... I don't have much to say to that.

I preferred the PS2's graphics. Under Defeat looked pretty amazing, there at the end, though.

About the N64 though....It had Nintendo's games, Rare's games, and Sin And Punishment(which didn't make it here). Ogre Battle 64 was a surprise(too bad I WAY prefer the Tactics Ogre style). I just remember being massively disappointed in it.

One system that surprised me, was the GBA. I totally skipped this, and when I got a DS, I picked up a batch of GBA games. They had some great games on that thing!

[Skykid]

What the shit are you people smoking? Nintendo 64 having no good games? Is this real life???????????????????????????

They're on crack obviously. To this day the N64 has some of the best games ever made.

[evil_ash_xero]

What the shit are you people smoking? Nintendo 64 having no good games? Is this real life???????????????????????????

They're on crack obviously. To this day the N64 has some of the best games ever made.

Well, it didn't have a LOT of games. I mean, Mario 64, Zelda OOT, Perfect Dark, Golden Eye...yeah, these were classics, but there isn't a bunch. And they came out really few and far between.

Has more games than the Wii though.

Hey, and stop badmouthing crack!

[Skykid]

What the shit are you people smoking? Nintendo 64 having no good games? Is this real life???????????????????????????

They're on crack obviously. To this day the N64 has some of the best games ever made.

Well, it didn't have a LOT of games. I mean, Mario 64, Zelda OOT, Perfect Dark, Golden Eye...yeah, these were classics, but there isn't a bunch. And they came out really few and far between.

Has more games than the Wii though.

Hey, and stop badmouthing crack!

Majora's Mask (DAMNIT!), Bangai-O, Ogre Battle 64, Wonder Project J, Excitebike 64, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Pilotwings 64, Quake II, Biohazard 2, 1080 Snowboarding, Kirby 64, Wave Race 64, Paper Mario, F-Zero X, Super Smash Bros, Starfox 64, Animal Crossing amongst others.

Even the non-AAA stuff like Star Wars Racer, Castlevania: Legacy of Cornell, and 007: The World is not Enough were pretty fun.

It definitely didn't have the most expansive library in the world, but it's worth noting the N64 was far from an abject failure - the Gamecube was a bigger monetary bomb for Nintendo and shifted fewer units, while the N64 did around 33 million over a period of six years.

[greg]

They're on crack obviously. To this day the N64 has some of the best games ever made.

Yes. There was that one game with Mario running around in the fog, and the one with Link running around in the fog, and oh yes, that one game with Starfox flying around in the fog. England has a lot of fog too, right?

No other major console in the past 20 years has ignored 2D gaming nearly as much as the N64. Somebody please correct me on this if I'm wrong.

[Skykid]

They're on crack obviously. To this day the N64 has some of the best games ever made.

Yes. There was that one game with Mario running around in the fog, and the one with Link running around in the fog, and oh yes, that one game with Starfox flying around in the fog. England has a lot of fog too, right?

No other major console in the past 20 years has ignored 2D gaming nearly as much as the N64. Somebody please correct me on this if I'm wrong.

It was a good fog.

[Stormwatch]

The 32X. I never had one, but at the time I read about it and thought it was going to be something cool. Instead, it had some barely improved Mega Drive ports, some original titles that might as well have come on the Mega Drive, and very few games that truly used its power. If the SegaCD taught us one thing... the 32X taught us again.

[grobda]

My biggest disappointment was saving up for an atari lynx (could only just afford a reconditioned one) and it worked for about 5 minutes.

was financially disappointed coming from the atari ST (where pirated/cheapo games were the norm) to a snes where carts cost ...£45 in the early 90's... is my memory out on that one? Fing expensive anyway.

then was blown away by the PS1, ridge racer and wipeout! ps2 was a disappointment after it, i think mainly becasue the titles i liked got graphically better but the gameplay was worse. (ridgeracer,wipeout,tombraider.. also tekken got too button-mashy so girls could beat you in a hilarious manner pulling off some random 15 move combo)

most recent pleasant surprise was rediscovering the saturn as a shmup console after thinking of it as a ps1 also-ran. play it more than the ps1 these days.

the 360 is the console of the day for sure. online is awesome.

the only notable console ive never owned is a N64. people used to rant about goldeneye but nothing else, ive never wanted one.

oh and finally playing arcade shmups on a proper cab that i actually own. awesome

[louisg]

It definitely didn't have the most expansive library in the world, but it's worth noting the N64 was far from an abject failure - the Gamecube was a bigger monetary bomb for Nintendo and shifted fewer units, while the N64 did around 33 million over a period of six years.

It's a good point, but of course some of that comes from the position in the market Nintendo was in the last generation. If the Genesis hadn't been competition, I think it's possible that the N64 might have done really well because Nintendo would be coming off a PSX-like domination of the market. TBQH, I'm not totally clear on why the N64 failed to get 3rd party developer support since it had a reasonable userbase. My guess is not that it was the cart limitation so much but probably dickish policies (like how they scared off Square).

most recent pleasant surprise was rediscovering the saturn as a shmup console after thinking of it as a ps1 also-ran. play it more than the ps1 these days.

Yeah! The Saturn was the first 3d console I got. It was well after it had been discontinued and a friend got one on eBay. He didn't like it, so I bought it off him for fifty bucks. And I was completely glued to it. If I had known about some of the games for it, I would've gotten one back in the day for sure. Hell, it might not be up to the other 2 consoles for 3d (with rare exceptions), but it sure outperformed my 486!

[gabe]

The biggest disappointment (by far) in my young gaming life was the Atari Jaguar. I picked one up shortly after its death at a highly discounted price. I knew it was bad, but I thought that I could at least appreciate the novelty. I was wrong. It really did suck THAT bad (maybe even worse).

Second, was Sega CD. I was young and in search of arcade-like graphics at home. I thought Sega CD was the answer, and somehow managed to get one for Christmas. I logged many hours on the system, but was a little disappointed when I discovered that most of the games were of the "push buttons to watch a movie" variety (ala Dragon's Lair).

As far as pleasant surprises - Sega Dreamcast. I'm currently obsessed with this console for the 3rd time in the past 12 years. The games seem perfectly aligned with my gaming tastes. The library does a fine job of straddling the line between classic 2D gaming and modern 3D gaming. Possibly my favorite console of all time.

[Ganelon]

I was probably most disappointed with the Jaguar. I already knew it was weak before buying but the sheer magnitude of unplayability was shocking. First off, there was that whole 64-bit debate but looking at any of the games, it's impossible to think of it as anywhere close to even a 3DO. The console felt really cheap and the controller looked like a joke. It has a mediocre library of titles. But the worst thing is that even games I expected to like were unplayable.

Folks said Checkered Flag was bad. Well, folks also said Virtua Racing on SS was bad and I had enjoyed that game so I figured I might enjoy Checkered Flag too. It looked similar after all. Only in motion is it obvious that there's something wrong.

Folks said Fight for Life was bad. Well, I figured that folks also said Toshinden was bad and I had enjoyed that game so I figured I might enjoy Fight for Life too. It looked similar after all. Only in motion is it obvious that there's something wrong.

For some of the systems, it's hard to really blame the manufacturers for 3rd party support when they put out decent games themselves (N64, GCN). But with the Jaguar, even Atari was shooting 1/10. It's pretty disappointing when Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy, a game that would be a laughingstock on most other consoles, is actually one of the Jaguar's better titles.

As for a system I've been surprised in, I expected nothing from the PSP, which seemed hopeless early on with nothing special in its designs or games, but it's build up a respectable library of games I like. It's crazy that it's even outsold the DS at times, with Nintendo having dominated handheld gaming since its inception.

[evil_ash_xero]

They're on crack obviously. To this day the N64 has some of the best games ever made.

Yes. There was that one game with Mario running around in the fog, and the one with Link running around in the fog, and oh yes, that one game with Starfox flying around in the fog. England has a lot of fog too, right?

No other major console in the past 20 years has ignored 2D gaming nearly as much as the N64. Somebody please correct me on this if I'm wrong.

It was a good fog.

It was crack smoke.

[antron]

No other major console in the past 20 years has ignored 2D gaming nearly as much as the N64. Somebody please correct me on this if I'm wrong.

the lack of Metroid says it all.

[brentsg]

It seems a lot of people are dogging N64 and Jaguar.

I'd buy both consoles for Wave Race and Tempest 2K alone.

[Skykid]

It seems a lot of people are dogging N64 and Jaguar.

I'd buy both consoles for Wave Race and Tempest 2K alone.

Tempest is the only game I've ever had on my Jaguar. Got the machine for £20 some years back, Tempest on ebay for a fiver. That was a fun Christmas.

[xbl0x180]

I have good memories of fun times playing the N64's Pokemon Snap for my little brother and mother. They'd stay up all night and watch how I collected photos of... pokemon

One big let down was the Turbo Duo. Man, that system had a huge game library back in Japan and barely any in the U.S. - and then it was unceremoniously starved off. Don't get me wrong, I love my Turbo Duo, but it coulda been one of the best systems I've ever owned if the games had flowed back then.

One big surprise was the s***box 360. The console is a piece of s***, but the games are a blast. Conversely, I thought the PS3 was gonna rock my world, but the games are boring as hell. Actually, I hadn't played video games in almost a decade [well, I did play occasionally] and I was basing my view of video games on what I saw coming out for the PS3 [and the fps crap infesting the scene]. Once I saw a video on YouTube for Mushihimesama Futari and DeathSmiles, I was sold on getting back into gaming. This was back in October. Since then, I've managed to acquire a small stash of games that keep me well entertained. Another pleasant surprise were the handhelds: PSP and the NDS Lite

[Sumez]

Why is the console "a piece of s***"?

Not counting the early models with RROD failure of course.